ESPN woes hurting Disney

The Avengers haven't been able to save Disney's stock this year. Neither have Mowgli and Baloo or a bunch of animated animals living in the big city.

Shares of Disney(DIS) are flat so far in 2016 -- despite the fact that it has ruled the box office thanks to "Captain America: Civil War," "The Jungle Book" and "Zootopia."

The company will report its latest financial results after the closing bell on Tuesday. The earnings should be pretty good. Analysts are expecting a profit increase of 13% from the same period last year.

But investors remain concerned about the health of ESPN.

The sports giant has been losing subscribers over the past few years. The problems at ESPN are hurting Disney's lucrative cable network business. Operating profits fell 5% at the unit in Disney's most recent quarter.

This is a problem because the company's media networks division -- which includes other cable networks like Disney Channel as well as broadcast network ABC -- account for the biggest percentage of revenue and profits for Disney.

The success of Disney's movie business and theme parks is helping to soften the blow of weakness in TV. But Disney needs to reassure Wall Street that ESPN has a plan to grow again. There are concerns that the network's popularity has peaked.

It doesn't help that ESPN continues to lose talent. Bill Simmons bolted (or was pushed out) last year. He has a new show launching next month on HBO which, like CNNMoney, is owned by Time Warner(TWX).

And in just the past few weeks, "Monday Night Football" play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico announced he was leaving for NBC while Skip Bayless is rumored to be headed to Fox Sports(FOXA) after his contract expires later this summer.

Former Disney executive Steve Burke, currently the CEO of Comcast's NBCUniversal, has been mentioned as a possible Iger successor.

That would make for some delicious irony since Comcast(CMCSA) launched a hostile (but ultimately failed) takeover bid for Disney in 2004. If that deal had gone through, Burke probably would have been put in charge of Disney.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (currently a Disney board member) has been mentioned as a possible Iger successor. So have former News Corp.(NWSA) president and COO Peter Chernin and former Yahoo(YHOO) interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.

BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield even boldly suggested that Disney buy Netflix(NFLX) so Netflix CEO Reed Hastings could then take over for Iger.

Regardless of what happens at ESPN and in the House of Mouse's corner offices, there's still a lot to like at Disney.